Huddle Up

So today I thought I would let our audience into the all important team meeting. Kelly, Stew and I have been meeting up and hanging out for years now, but only in the last couple of months have we actually produced anything from our hours upon hours of sitting around. So let me get you prepared for a meeting at The INC!
First, and most importantly, the box. This box from my pair of The Hundreds shoes, which was then sent as a package from my mom, is the life blood of The INC! It has everything in it: the money, business cards, business license, bank paperwork, etc. Some people use filing cabinets or save everything on their computer, but we do things a little bit different.

Next, the sketch pads. I always have something to draw on. When we're bouncing ideas around in a meeting, I often just start sketching ideas and seeing what the other guys think. It's also a good distraction when they start talking business and finances and stuff... But these four notebooks pretty much contain every idea The INC! has had and everything we'll be releasing in the near future.

In order to put the ideas on paper, you need something to draw with. I pretty much use Ticonderoga pencils exclusively because of their amazing erasers. I also have my travel sharpener with me for those days when I'll be using a lot of lead. In addition, I gotta have my box of colors. In here, I have crayons, markers, Sharpies, colored pencils and more. With these I am able to put a little color into those sketched ideas. How many 20 year olds do you know who go to work with a big box of crayons and markers? Life is good.


Once I have a sketch I like, Stew has to get it into Photoshop to create the official design. Therefore, I always have my digital camera and memory card reader on hand so I can take a picture of my sketch and get it to Stew to get it to you.

Last but not least are the mascots of The INC! I picked up these little guys in Japan this summer and both have significant meaning. The cat is called a Maneki Neko supposed to beckon customers to a business, and I figured the little guy couldn't hurt. So when you feel the sudden urge to buy some of our stuff, it's probably our cat bringing in the bacon. The little man is called a Daruma doll. When you buy one, his eyes are both blank. You're supposed to fill in one eye while making a wish. When it comes true, you fill in his other eye. As you can see, he still only has one eye. That's because I am yet to see someone I don't know walking down the street in some The Incorporated Clothing. Who knows, maybe this guy will have both his eyes soon...

There you have it. That's pretty much all you need to be an Artistic Designer at a small clothing company. Doesn't look that easy does it? Add these two guys and you're ready to Get Incorporated.

In Case You Didn't Know...

This is a little late, but if you didn't know, we got an official website. Go to www.theincorporatedclothing.com and you can keep updated on how things are going around The INC! Stewart really did his thing on the site. It's not 100% but we'll get it there soon. So keep checking for news, new designs, tweets and everything else incorporated.

Urbanity 2

We're on the shelves! The homie Lee over at Urbanity is selling some of our Statue shirts for us in his store. It's an awesome spot that sells Imaginary Foundation, Casual Industrees, Kid Robot, Emnace and now, The INC! Get over there soon cause there are not too many left!

Urbanity

We got some exciting news this week. There is a shop here in Seattle called Urbanity and they just agreed to do a run of our Statue of Liberty shirts. It's a small order, but it's a start. We're delivering the shirts sometime this week and they should be available then, but act quick because there won't be too many of them down there. The shop is at 5101 25th Ave NE in the U District. It's a great little shop carrying some sweet sneakers as well as a lot of our favorite clothing brands. So stop by sometime in the next week, pick up the Statue shirt if you haven't done so already and say hi to Lee, the owner. Tell him the INC! sent you.


Check out their website and blog here.

"Our" Logos

Even though they suck, we got mad love for our teams.

The Bluff

Recently, we were contacted by our school, University of Portland, to design a t shirt for the Freshmen Class Service Day. Someone at the school found our story in the Ballard News Tribune on the Google News Feed and contacted us about working together. It's not a for sure thing yet but I thought I would let whoever reads this thing a look at what we've been working on:
We started with this old Golden State Warriors logo. Very simple and classic, using an important landmark as the basis for the image.

So we took that image and applied it to life at University of Portland. Lots of people call our school "The Bluff," so we went with that nickname and used the chapel and new bell tower (which should be at least 3 times as tall) as our landmark. Put it all together with a little Purple Pride in the colors and this is what comes out:

This may not be the very, very final design, but it's at least the basic idea. Thought I would let our readers check it out.
Oh and one other thing. Our computer man, Stew, came up with this genius idea for the logo. All of our shirts include a The INC! logo in the back neck of the shirt, but for this project, we came up with something special:

boom.
So there you go. This is what we've been working on as of late. Still trying to get a real website together, should be done soon and hopefully we're finishing up the graphics for another t-shirt run. Exciting things...

Learn How To Dress - Lily Allen

This chick has the look down. Dresses and sneakers is an amazing combo. I hear she has kind off gone of the deep end but she's still got her awesome style.

Extra! Extra! Read All About Us!

So this week we got some shine in our local paper, the Ballard News Tribune. An old middle school friend of mine now works (and essentially runs) the paper and through some connects we hooked back up for an interview and story. We're super excited about the press and the support we've already received from people who have read it. You can read the whole story here.
Notice the comment on the bottom that says we are "cuties".
We're (Stewart) working on a new website that would also include online purchasing and shipping orders. We're (Kelly and Mark) hoping to have that up in the next few weeks. Also, we're trying to get another set of shirts made by the end of the summer. All in all, things are just chugging along. Climb aboard!

Le Be Be Que

This Sunday we had our Launch Party and 1st Annual BBQ. It turned out to be a huge success. We had about 40 people show up and show support for our new little business venture. A great mix of close friends (both our peers and older) came out to eat some food, share some laughs and hear some good music. Let me give those who couldn't be there a little taste of the night:
The best ride goes to the homie Ben. He rolled from downtown after work on this Huskies custom painted scooter. Purple and gold rarely looks this good.

My old man took care of the bbq. He was constantly ready at the grill, armed with a spatula and plenty of Costco frozen patties. Shout out to my mom on all the other food too. If anyone needs any potato salad, we got you.

Here's some of the other dudes who came through. Sorry if you were there and don't get a shout out, Stew must have missed you with the camera...

Possibly the winner for the biggest fan of The INC!, Caskey came through and had to get a shot with the crew.

Brian came through to get really close to the camera.

D-Block and The Big took the crown for most cherries eaten. They were in the neighborhood and decided to stop by and kick it for a bit.

Laura came but was not enthused about the camera...

They don't call him The Big for nothing.

There's Hayden, Jed and Ben chillin out on the bench. Ben was mid-diss, making some sort of comment to Sam.

So everyone here had the pleasure of having our buddy Sam Wegman play some music for us all. He is really talented and I have actually mentioned him previously on the blog. Needless to say, he killed it.





So, from us to you, thanks for everything.

It was a blast.

Headquarters

With all the money coming in, you'd probably figure we had a big, fancy spot for out headquarters. Unfortunately, it's still just my living room. But it works and today we just got our business license finalized, so really it's one. The top is the only place to go now...






But don't actually count the money in the picture...

Remember?